Nodtveidt

1 oz per pound is generally pretty safe, I believe it's about 4% load which is enough for most FOs unless you want to knock people out of their chairs. Of course, testing will tell you what's best, and if you intend on taking the craft seriously, you will be doing lots and lots and lots and lots of testing. Be sure to keep a log of your findings.

My wife came up with a great one...

Cinnamon.

Simple, effective, accurate, and politically correct.

Exactly, why wouldn't anyone use wick pins?

I can't STAND wick pins so I never ever use them, not even for votives. Then again, I only ever do molded-type votives that pour upside down...

Actually, Winzip IS a program...what you're thinking of is "zip". Winzip is a Windows-based implementation of an archiving program that primarily supports the Zip format. However, there are plenty of free archiving programs that you can use instead of Winzip (which frankly, is one of the worst out there, and they make you pay for their overhyped garbage). This one's got a lot of claim to fame:

FreeZIP

as well as this one:

7-zip

7-zip is becoming the "new standard" for archiving and has its own higher-compression format (7z) in addition to regular old Zip (plus many more).

Calwax CW-30CB is said to be able to hold a 15% fragrance load. I've only seen it sold in a couple of places though, and we've yet to try it out so I have no idea if it lives up to its promise or not.

We were considering it but they never responded to our messages so we ordered from someone else. Shame too, they have some promising blends.

Cater to your market, or you won't sell squat.

Scented, this town starlessjade is describing sounds very much like the place I grew up...a very small, close-knit circle of hicks who don't give a rat's fuzzy behind if there's quality in the product, they only care what it looks like and how much it costs.

Suggestion: seriously play on religious themes and, since it's in November, Christmas themes. Also, if you're able to make a candle that looks like a riding lawnmower or a sleeping dog, I bet you'll sell them all out in under an hour.

Luci, my wife and I bought up a bunch of cheapo candles just for the containers one time...wow, the wax inside them was SO crap, the wick was the wrong size, and the pour was pathetic. Great containers for 69 cents apiece though!

Sex sells, but it has to be in the right environment to sell. People are generally too bashful in public to admit that they like sex-based products, even gag gifts. Religious stuff always sells, and sports...hell yeah. The postcard idea is a good one. If you can swing it costwise, radio advertising is the best in a densely-populated area, especially during the workday. But he was definately right about newspapers...they're generally ineffective since people generally train themselves to look away from advertising, so it doesn't matter how catchy your ad is, it will likely be overlooked anyways.

And uhh...avoid flea markets like the plague. We learned that lesson the hard way too, stuck it out for two months like the stubborn fools we are. People go to flea markets expecting to walk away with cheap junk for pennies on the dollar. And it's become especially bad nowadays with what we call the "Walmart Mentality"...people expect something for next to nothing, and when it comes down to what most of us do, it just doesn't work that way...

Wow, and to think we were about to buy some of their (rather expensive) molds too...no thanks! Hope you get it worked out.

All righty, then. So I pour a rustic pillar today, and I'm a bit anxious to see how it turned out. So once it's cooled, I invert the mold, take off the mold sealer, and it slides an inch or so out, but then stops. So I gently pull by the wick ... anyone cringing yet? Ummmm....yeah, out comes the entire friggin' wick. ACK! Hey, that trick has always worked BEFORE.

(BTW, the pillar DID look fairly decent though. )

Weird. I almost always tug the wick from the opposite side to make it come out if it doesn't slide out. Sounds like it hadn't cooled enough in the middle, you prolly tipped it too early since you were so anxious to see how it came out.

Maybe the whole "gel candles explode" thing was started by jealous paraffin chandlers afraid of the gellers stealing some of their thunder.

Any coffee scents make me want to hurl. My wife can't stand the smell of baby powder, which is unfortunate considering it's used in two of our proprietary fragrance blends.

Aren't they the people that do that "Create The Dream" magazine?

I'd pay 200 for a pair of jeans if they made me look like I had a butt.

Just buy them a size too small...seems to work for most.:laugh2:

Okay, here it is...the 7 day test. There is some slight frosting in a ring pattern about 3/4 of an inch around the original melt pool. The extreme changes in the environment here in PR is likely the cause. The color has retained as normal, no changes. Cold throw is still powerful. No sooting whatsoever. Hot throw doesn't appear to have changed at all. A few cat hairs on top of the wax. Possible cause: cats. Solution: fricasé de gato.

*MEOW!!*

Final analysis: successful experiment, all results are within acceptable ranges. This is a good candle blend. Needs extensive testing with a good range of FOs and dyes though, that will come next.

You should see the ultracrap candles you can buy dirt-cheap down here...PR gets these incredibly crappy candles made in the Dominican Republic that have the WORST case of mottling I've ever seen...and not the good kind either, these look like the wax was deliberately overstirred right before pouring into the containers. What sells them though is all the religious stuff on them...people look past the ultracrap wax for their religious fix and a cheap price.

Both are important, really. A domain name that is memorable is easier to pass along via word-of-mouth, and in many places, word-of-mouth is the best advertising that money can't buy.

When I used to work the craft shows in New England back in the day, people weren't so fixated on the type of wax you used, but they'd sure get huffy over the look and scent. I always used a lot of essential oils, so mine were usually different from everyone else's. I got a few dirty comments, such as "his candles are poisonous!" but I sold tons anyways...to the people who knew better.

Here though, since we have a monopoly in our area, no one questions us or our work. We did, however, get one fruity old lady at the pulguero when we were setting up our tree display...she claimed that she could make our trees better than us and sell them cheaper than us (we were selling them for $20 each...I sold them for $30 and up in the states at the craft shows over a decade ago). We were waiting for her to come set up a booth and put us out of business...this was last October...we're still waiting.

One thing you can tell people who bug you about the "purity" of candles is that NO candle is EVER "pure" or "100% natural" no matter WHAT you use. Soy wax, even soy wax that claims to be 100% pure, isn't. There are ALWAYS additives added, it's necessary to make the wax in the first place. Same goes for palm wax. But of course, don't let the facts get in the way of a good "mine is better than theirs" sales pitch...

Best one I've ever used was a lavender essential oil from a company called NOW, picked it up at GNC. A bit pricey, but great for aromatherapy candles.

I'm not sure if godaddy has that problem, which would be ironic since they're one of the top registrars in the world right now. I've done hundreds of searches on godaddy over the years and never had one squatted. I don't trust any other registrar anyways...

But that is a bit of sound advice.

I'm always wary of places that tell you that you need no web design skill to make your site...sites tend to turn out "cookie-cutter" that way. This place looks a bit different though, looks like you've got quite a few good options. Nice stuff.

Tis definately a major decision, likely the biggest one you'll ever make. My wife and I struggled with our name for awhile...we almost settled with the name "Faun Lights" because we both liked the Narnia movie. But your business name will be the word people associate you with, so better make it good. If you can't think of anything right now, just give it some time and whatever you do, don't think too hard about it...the proper name will probably just come to you eventually. Good luck.

Where we run our operation, there are very few choices for candles...pretty much only the department stores and the grocery stores. Craft shops are almost non-existent. Buying wax? We had to drive over an hour to find a shop that was merely selling "candle wax" but had NO idea what kind of wax they were even selling! Forget about additives or even dyes...non-existent. (Needless to say, we didn't spend a penny there.) Chandlers here are extremely rare. Think candlemaking in the US is expensive? Try here! Absurdly high shipping costs make it tough to get a foothold in the craft, and that's one of the major reasons why there are so few chandlers on this island. What you can buy here is equally pathetic though...you pretty much have a choice between the "mainstays" candles (I believe this is Walmart's brand...and they cheat HARDCORE...I don't even want to get into how many shortcuts their "candlemakers" use) and this REALLY poor-quality brand that's imported from the Dominican Republic. There are a couple of odds-and-ends candle brands that sometimes make it down here, and of course, you've got the third-party stuff (such as Betty Crocker's attempts) that you can find in places like Walgreens. Market saturation? Not a chance in hell. Opportunity? Prime, if you can swing the cost (which we fortunately can).

When I did my candlemaking in Vermont about 12 years ago, they were EVERYWHERE...you could buy candles on just about every city block where I lived (Burlington), there was even a Yankee (Yankme?) Candle store (you could smell it a block away). There was so much market saturation that it made me wonder how anyone stayed afloat! And from what I've heard from my friends still in Vermont, it's gotten worse, not better.

So, how about everyone else? How's the market saturation level where you are? Any problems with penetration? In saturated markets, how do you go about establishing presence?

Maybe people here could start one up.

Very partial to the palm candle. Nice work!